This week’s Seattle Weekly has a terrifying story of how the entire Seattle-Tacoma region may be buried under tons of mud and rock. Yes, we have our very own versions of ‘possibly the worst disaster in American history’. This makes the Alaskan Way viaduct look like a pony show, apparently.

The unabated construction of thousands of new homes in known lahar paths leaves Pringle “flabbergasted. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know what is going to happen in the future. But a geologist can only be an advocate for taking information seriously. We can’t step out of our role and ask, ‘Why don’t you get out of harm’s way?’ because it is not what we are tasked to do.”

It’s quite possible we’ll start hearing more about this over the months to come. I’m not sure I trust a politician whose career in office might only be five or ten years to spend money on a disaster that lies in the unknown future. I know we can’t just move everyone out of the best land in the Seattle-Tacoma region, but surely there must be some kind of happy medium. Anybody have any thoughts on how to take something like this?